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Hold Effective Meetings and Increase
Employee Satisfaction
Session ID 276, February 14, 2019
Joyce Zerkich, CPHIMS, MSBIT, MBA, PMP, ACC, Program Manager, Trinity Health
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Joyce Zerkich, CPHIMS, MSBIT, MBA, PMP, ACC
Has no real or apparent conflicts of interest to report.
Conflict of Interest
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• Learning Objectives
• Passion to affect Positive Change, grassroots
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Issues
• Challenges
• Conclusion
• Best Practices from 2015-2018
Agenda
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• Define the key information that recipients of a meeting notice need
to clearly understand to ensure your meeting time is utilized
effectively
• Identify what must be included in meeting minutes
• Apply standard agenda and minute formats to help drive team
expectations and individual accountability
• Recognize a simple outline for meeting minutes
• Recognize when to call a meeting and when other means of
communication is effective (as well as time-savings)
Learning Objectives
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Passion to affect Positive Change
Annual all employee Survey Question:
“This Organization Supports me in balancing work and personal life”
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Begin with the End in Mind (2018)
2018
Results up
from
20%=Yes
2018
Results up
from
20%=Yes
Trinity Health Internal company Survey, IRMS, March 2018
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0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
Attendees are respectful.
Sponsors, business owners and meeting leads come prepared and
with the intent to help make decisions/guide colleagues.
A reduction in meetings scheduled at noon has occurred.
Attendees on the phone announce themselves so participants in the
room know who is on the conference line.
Meeting purpose is identified in the meeting appointment.
A reduction in meetings scheduled from 3-5 p.m. on Fridays has
occurred.
Agendas are provided prior to meetings or are located in the meeting
appointment.
Begin with the End in Mind (2018)
The original
scores were
20% or less
66% survey
participation
66% survey
participation
Trinity Health Internal company Survey, IRMS, March 2018
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2015 Challenge: Agree to transparently define
the Root Causes
Metric
Procedures
Environment
Policies
People
Effective
Meetings
Leader, In the meeting notice:
- a link to pre-read materials
- an agenda
- a purpose: information sharing, discussion,
problem solving, or decision making
- desired outcome of the meeting
Leader :
-Take responsibility for effectiveness
-Keep meeting on track
Leader
- reschedule the date/time
if stakeholders cannot
attend
-- send a cancellation
if the stakeholders
cancel at the
last minute
Attendees
-come prepared: read materials before the meeting
- accept only if really commit to attend
- tentatively accept if there is a chance can’t attend
- decline if know cannot attend
- if accept, then find out later cannot attend,
resend a decline so the facilitator is aware
Attendees:
- show up on time
- - begin on time
Leader
- start on time
- end on time or earlier
Attendees:
- Respect each other's
time
- Communication skills
-Utilize a department
‘Meeting Contract’
To align everyone
Leader
- provide a recap of next steps at the end
- send a written recap with due dates and responsibility
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2015 Root Cause
Question Create a New Event If
Use an Existing Event
If
Do most of your key
stakeholders come
together independent of
your issue?
There is no event which
brings together most of
the required parties
The majority of your
required stakeholders
participate in an existing
meeting or other forum
Is the issue urgent? Regularly scheduled
events will not happen
quickly enough to
address your issue
The timing of existing
events is adequate to
resolve the issue
Does your issue fit the
agenda of an existing
forum?
Your issue is unrelated
to the purpose of an
existing meeting
Your issue fits in the
context of what the
existing meeting is
organized to achieve
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2015: Recognize How to Best Communicate
Question Meet If Do NOT Meet If
Who has the information/
data to be shared?
The same stakeholders
must get together to share
information on multiple
topics
The communication can be
handled through1-to-many
communication such as email
Are the issues to
communicate complex?
Follow-up Q&A with
stakeholders is absolutely
necessary to understand
the issue
The issue can be
communicated clearly and
simply through writing
Do you need to
simultaneously bring
together all people to
whom the message must
be communicated?
If it is vital that they hear the
same message at the same
time
You can use representatives
or a sub-group to
communicate the message to
the target audience
Who is most capable of
communicating to the
target audience?
You must confirm that a
group of people who will
communicate to a larger,
decentralized audience share
the same message
The information must be
tailored to representatives
from different groups
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2015: Establish Norms
“We believe everyone’s time is important so to show respect for each other,
we agree:
• When receiving meeting notices we will:
• ‘Accept’ only if we commit to attend
• ‘Tentatively accept’ if there is any chance we can’t attend
• ‘Decline’ if we know we cannot attend
• If we accept, then find out later we cannot attend, we will immediately
resend
• A decline with explanation so the facilitator is aware”
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2016: Roll Up Your Sleeves
• Read all the pre-read materials
• Arrive on time
• Leave space for your team mates to talk
• Ask questions rather than assert
• Identify rabbit holes
• Stay on topic
• Abide by the 3-exchange limit
• Don’t repeat yourself or anyone else
• Respect the Chairperson or Facilitator
• Not speaking is sometimes very helpful
• Discussing “the discussion” is expensive
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2016: Personal Accountability
We Acknowledge one another as equals
We try to stay curious about each other
We recognize that we need each other’s help to become
better listeners
We slow down so we have time to think and reflect
We remember that conversation is the natural way humans
think together
We expect it to be messy at times”
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2017: Steward Time
Trinity Health Internal company Survey, IRMS, March 2018
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• Arrive to the meeting and/or call in early
• Sponsors, Business Owners, and meeting leads should come
prepared and with the intent to help make decisions and guide
employees.
• Be fully present and actively participate as both a listener and
contributor.
• Offer that you will be available on Company Texting Tool
• Meetings and deliverables are owned by the team
• Exhibit respectful behavior at meetings.
• If uncomfortable with behaviors in meeting, promptly discuss it
with your supervisor.
• Limit computer use to those activities essential to the work at hand
2017: Meeting Participants
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• Take your own minutes so that tasks can be completed
independently without waiting for someone else to deliver the
meeting notes, creating the need for another meeting or having to
ask someone else what was said.
• Speak up at the meeting if the project timeline does not allow you
adequate time to deliver on a project.
• Schedule work time on your calendar to complete tasks.
• Display integrity to your team members by doing what you say you
will do and when you commit to doing it.
• Make effective use of Company Texting Tool (Jabber) to facilitate
“quick questions”, use “Do not Disturb” if necessary.
2017: Personal Accountability
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2018: Keep Drilling Down
Trinity Health Internal company Survey, IRMS, March 2018
“Establishing a Note taker before the
meeting and then having that Note taker
disseminate the notes so we're all on the
same page.”
“….information could have been shared via e-
mail in advance so if there are questions, they
can be addressed during the meeting”
“I am seeing improvement
but we need to keep
working at it…….We all
need to do better with
this.”
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Agenda included in every meeting notice
• Conference Call Number and Web link
• Meeting Purpose
• Meeting Intended Outcome
• Agenda with each main topic and the owner(s) of the discussion
2018: Back to Basics
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Minutes
• Attendees
• Attachments
• Decisions
• Next Steps: who, what, when
• Notes
2018: Back to Basics
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Suggestion:
Before you hold your team meeting to talk your team about making changes
to your meetings,
Search on “Meetings” in Utube to choose one of the plethora of humorous
meeting examples to kick-off your discussion with your team
2018: Keep Your Sense of Humor
